Ouroboros
by Catchline
Summary: Contrary to popular belief, the Sorting Hat has never put anyone in a house due to the person’s bravery, cunning, loyalty or wit. Of course, it lets the people think otherwise. [Oneshot]


**A/n:** Sorry about the first time I posted this drabble. It was in a fit of madness/glee that I finished it in one day and the resultant urge to post it up immediately without checking. (Okay fine, so I don't really check my works well on Microsoft Word. It annoys me greatly. Who says I'm perfect? _But I am, of course! _)

Ouroboros

Contrary to popular belief, the Sorting Hat had never put anyone in a house due to the person's bravery, cunning, loyalty or wit. Of course, it let the people think otherwise, for none of them will be pleased to learn of their shortcomings, and humans had a habit of blocking out what they did not like and would most likely put it away and keep it from any sortings in future.

That would never do. It had a job to complete.

History was written, you see. Despite what had actually happened, history was only what the next generation bothered to pen down, and if they didn't, well, it never happened. No one knew of how the sorting hat actually came about, for it didn't tell them, instead giving them a more listener-friendly version that they heard and swallowed whole.

The same happened for the four who made it. Despite the details in which the books recorded their work on the Hogwarts building, there was nothing about their reliance, their dependence on each other. It was almost perfect, the degree to which they complimented each other. Singular and alone, they were flawed, imperfect; but together, their magic flowed like the wind and seeped into the very plain, brown earth that Hogwarts was built upon. The earth nurtured and cared for its seedlings, and that was what it was supposed to do as it saw generations of children first step onto its grounds and leave years later, some returning, some never. The earth was never made to mourn. It was only supposed to give and give and give, and one day everything would return to it and the cycle would start over again.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

The four were different in every possible way, and perhaps that was how they got along. Opposites attract, after all. But not the word 'opposite'. It was not quite right, for it suggested that there only two ways a person could grow. There were two sides to a coin, they said. Another of their mistakes. There were never two sides to everything. It would have been more accurate had they called it a circle – there was always a light and dark side, but no definite border to separate the two on the voluptuous surface. And, at the end of the day, there was, at the same time, no sides and infinite sides to its surface. Those four were like half-semicircles. They had their own ideas, a narrow view of the world that just happened to look in four different directions. North, south, east and west. When combined, the Sorting Hat had the view of the world.

Help them, Helga Hufflepuff had sung. Help them with their future endeavors, and god bless them so they'll succeed.

Courage, Godric Gryffindor roared. Courage would help them through their days. You can do nothing without courage.

Nonsense, Salazar Slytherin hissed. Cunning's what you need. Cunning to plan more than three steps ahead, and to anticipate your enemy's next move. There's only danger when it's in the dark.

Hush, Rowena Ravenclaw chided. Give them intelligence, so they might see the world for themselves. Open their eyes, for eyes are the windows to the soul, and allow their minds to travel on the broad path of many choices. Their lives are their own.

So it did. When the first scared, trembling little boy put it on his head, it delved deep into his mind, using its creator's skills at legimency, and decided what would be best for him.

In a small, quivering little redhead, it saw the fear the little boy had for his friend, a pretty, pale blond whose full lips were in a permanent sneer. He'd need courage, the hat decided, to help his friend, bravery and faith in a friendship borne from the white and white world of children.

And Albus Dumbledore was sorted into Gryffindor.

Damiens Malfoy was petty, spiteful, with a child's conviction that his parents' words were right. He didn't understand why his cheerful neighbour became quiet at his usage of the word 'mudblood', and he didn't see what was wrong with hexing the deformed creatures, always dressed so strangely in upper robes that stopped at the waist and lower robes that had a split in them that clung on to their legs so incredibly vulgarly. His father had encouraged his acquaintance with the other boy, saying that the Dumbledores were pure of blood and nothing could go wrong with knowing them, and so he did not understand why the boy did not share in his convictions. God bless them, Helga Hufflepuff said. It sorted the boy into Slytherin, praying that the house would teach him the cunning to see past his father's manipulation to the road that was his own.

The students came one after another, always different, always the same. Bones had chirped out a sweet greeting to it, one that it saw was branded into her mind by her grandmother who had heard it from her grandmother. Such a selfless, self-effacing girl who lived just because dying would cause complications. The hat wished her faith, and directed her to the house of the loyal, and prayed that they, the selfless and self-effacing children there, would teach her that she was what she had to live on for.

Then the Ravenclaws, all thirsty, mind claws reaching out for more and more, because knowledge was power, and knowledge shaped one into a better and always better person. It placed them in the house of their peers, allowing them their academic discussions, so that they would never one day have to know of the fact that knowledge could harm. Let them choose their futures from their interests, it thought, because on the words of a book, everything was black and white, and good always triumphs over evil.

It thought it had done well, until another pale, pretty boy put it on, and it read the same history and future as the previous one before it. It had, it realized, failed, but there was no other path to walk now, and it called out Slytherin with as much pride as it had before, pleading with his long dormant soul to awaken and teach the boy the cunning that he was so famous for.

There were no more Dumbledores, but there were Potters, and Weasleys, and it placed them one by one into Gryffindor, awakening in them the bravery they would have to face the world and reality, to come out of the rainbow-decorated sky their parents set them to fly in away from the world of war and poverty. The blond hair appeared again and again, and each time its brim got heavier in its weight of its verdict as it sent a prayer to each boy that he would someday be Slytherin enough to fight his traditions with its own games.

The Diggorys produced exceptional brains, it learnt, and each time it sorted a new Ravenclaw it dreamt of the new inventions that would grace the world after seven years, and hoped that in their pursuit of knowledge they would learn nothing of the world around them. Then there were the Hufflepuffs, timid and shy, minds embracing its foreign touch as it worries that they would bleed themselves out for others. At least, it thought, they have others to bleed for them too.

The strange thing about humans was that all was in the mind. For them to be able to do something, they first needed to be _told_ they could do something. The power of confidence was something they should never learn of, lest they doubt even that, it knew. So the Gryffindors were willing to face their fears because they were Gryffindors and Gryffindors were brave, and the Hufflepuffs remained loyal to each other because Hufflepuffs were loyal people. The Ravenclaws devoted their intelligence to learning instead of politics, because that was what Ravenclaws were supposed to do, and the Slytherins held their heads high, each one a Legimens charm regardless of whether they actually learnt the spell, because they were the cunning Slytherins.

Then the war came, and gradually the young minds it sat on became separated, and it saw the disgust and loathing many had for the forth house. That wasn't supposed to happen, it sang the very next year. Houses were not judges of character, it wanted to tell them, they were schools of their own, to equip the young ones with skills they would need for the rest of their lives. But those were words never meant to be said, and they sat at the back of its split in a bundle of tangled threads every time it turned a new child away from the rest of the world to face another direction.

The years passed and the names passed by it, occasionally a new one, and occasionally an old one would disappear forever, but more often repeating over and over again. Avery, Creevy, Goyle, Prince-

Then, for the first time in many years, it found itself taken out before the next sorting started, and found itself hat to face with an old man. It was only when he placed it on his head that it remembered the boy that never returned to him, and grieved with his long buried memory of that pale, pretty boy whose sneer never faded even as he turned his face away. It saw the many years from a view that children never had, and, for the first time, learnt of the horrors of the days past. The child from before told him that he was the headmaster now, and asked it what he should do next. He was a leader for the light now, and he had a war to fight. I sorted you before, it told him, and I stand by what I said.

Take your bravery, it whispered to the still air later, and wrap it around you to shield you from the atrocities of war. Let your courage support your will, and we'll pray that it'll never falter.

After that, for the first and only time ever, it considered doing away with the forth house. It would never fit in now, it realized, and would forever be declared the dark house. Yet when it alighted on the head of a young Avery, it realized that that would not be possible. The steps taken by those of the past could not be erased away, and the boy's father was Slytherin, but not Slytherin enough., not far-sighted to accept that another house would be as good as his own, and, fearing for the boy, it had no choice but to call out that house's name again. There was no way to forcibly turn the boy away from the road that had been chosen for him by his father's father's father and, many generations back, where it came back to it's single word. Three syllables, it thought, could shape generations. There was a chance, it knew, that it could turn them bit by bit, generation by generation, until they faced another direction. Ravenclaw was still acceptable to the child's father, it knew, but it would be unfair to set a hunter into a forest to save him from the desert. That name was a blessing it the past, but was now a curse.

It wasn't a curse, it reiterated year after year. It was the people who came up with curses, and imposed them on what was supposed to be a blessing. So that was what it had to do, and after every cursed boy that it sorted, it sent a silent blessing on invisible wings and hoped that the boy could hear their flutter amongst the respective boos and cheers in the future years. It wanted to weep for the unfairness, but hats could produce no tears, and it had no way to cry.

Then that boy came along, and he brought hope back to it. He came from a family as dark as his name, but, even as it saw in the boy the same streak of cruelty as the generations before him, it also saw the defiance for traditions, and a glimmer of curiosity, about why he should call others mudblood when his friend was a muggle. It broke tradition that evening, and silently cheered as it sorted the first Slytherin-born Gryffindor ever. Even as years later, when whispers of the crimes committed by that boy, now a man in Azkaban, came back to it, it remained cheerful. As long as there was a first, there would be more.

The string of blond boys continued, each one more delicate and stronger than the previous. Each smirk was more cruel, each insult more cutting. Yet as it's intrusive probing went deeper, it heard the wailing plea behind the smirks and glares, and it wept along with them. There were many more – Parkinsons, Zaibinis, Bulstrodes…but it was forever on the Malfoys that it felt the scars the keenest.

And then there was that boy. Dark, alone, but strong in mind and spirit, with the Slytherin green shining from his eyes. Even when it sorted him into the by then accursed house, it held the hope that he would be the one to prove the house in later years. He already had the bravery and the mind, and all he needed was experience to sharpen him. Then, maybe, just maybe, he might be able to pull the name of his house out of the mud. He was bitter, enough to seek the comfort of Slytherin cruelty, but smart enough to realize that a blood elitist group would never accept his heritage and proud enough not to compromise his dignity.

It was guilt stricken when it heard about the rising dark lord, yet it forced the bitter, recurring thoughts away year after year. Then another came, also dark, also alone. Prince, his voice, cutting even at his age, and insisted. I do not require the name of a man who played no part in my life. This one would do, it decided. The other, previous boy would help, and because opposites attract, perhaps like would repel. The previous boy wanted a world where purity of blood reigned, and with the pride of this boy, perhaps this exact idea would be the one to turn him from the direction he had been assigned. And perhaps this boy would be the one that would erase the footsteps of the past, and write the next portion of history.

Please, it prayed, to restore the beloved house, any sacrifice would suffice.

So when it heard of the boy's role in war, it had grieved, but at the same time, it rejoiced. It loved all these children, children that it had sorted and watched through the years and the generations. In a way, they were its children, and it chased after their whereabouts like a worried father. The boy would have demons at night, it knew, but he would be able to sleep with them. And perhaps, just perhaps, by the end of the war, he might have chased all the demons away.

There was one more generation of the same names, then suddenly, all stopped. The red-headed boy it had sorted years ago, now an old man now, suddenly stopped visiting it, and it had to fall back to gleaming incomplete information from young minds.

Dumbledore died, their memories stammered, and it felt the chill emanating from their small bodies. But even as the sky turned darker from clouds that seemed to be stained by blood, they clung on to the belief that there was still the-boy-who-lived to protect them.

Yes, the boy-who-lived. It remembered the boy they spoke of, remembered his sorting. He was powerful, yes, and it could feel the innate magic lying dormant in him, a mixture of a child's untainted white and the dark traces of him who left it in him. But other than that, there was not much else. He was the-boy-who-lived, nothing more. There was an ambition for something better, and a bright, childish hope that things would be better. It had wanted to put the boy in Slytherin, just so that it could shout the name and show the world that it's boy-savior was there, that Slytherin was not all dark and darker. In the end, it placed him in Gryffindor, for even for one kept so long away from Wizarding bias and suspicions, one train ride was enough for him to sink as deeply into it as the rest. The boy would only find darker things to come. The world placed its hopes on him, and he needed the bravery and courage to not fall under the pressure.

Years passed, and as the war progressed, the number of children lessened, and it no longer knew what happened to the war. It yearned for information, for news of its children, and could only find consolation in the fact that their parents, who were the same-different batch of children a generation ago, had kept them sheltered from the war.

Then, one year, amidst the rapidly dwindling number of children, it found itself on a head of red hair again. The family was the constant through the years, always poor, always sporting a higher dream. It saw the same old insecurities that plagued each generation through the years, and always placed them in Gryffindor, allowing them to learn for themselves in a house that would neither pity them nor would ostracize them, either intentionally or because they were too poor to partake in the house's literary craze. Gryffindors were always brash and short-sighted, but it was this quality of them that allowed them to overlook the limits that society imposed on them, ignoring most qualities that others would consider a social stigma.

So it was surprised to look into a childhood with no financial problems, and it practically sang out Gryffindor after probing into the child's memories. This time not because the child required courage, but because it would make the child happy. It basked in the boy's surge of wild joy at its announcement, and despite the Slytherins it had to sort again, the glow it felt didn't fade.

For in the child's memory, the full, perfectly formed lips that had for generations curled into a sneer were instead curved in a smile, and the dark, gloomy boy that had grown into a dark, gloomy man staggering under the weight of his double-job was no longer frowning, the tongue that was so used to shooting out acidic comments were now dealing out, albeit subtle, compliments. Uncle Draco and Uncle Severus, the boy called them.

Perhaps that dark, gloomy _man_ still had demons at night as it did, but there was no doubt that he, like it, could now sleep with it at night.

And perhaps, just perhaps, in the years to come, the darkest house of the four would finally rise to the glory where the rest resided, and return to the altar where it was destined to rest.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And the Sorting Hat had done its job. After all, who knew that those who had only learnt to frown had such brilliant smiles?

And, for the first time ever, it felt, along its torn brim of tangled threads and dust, the flutter of wings of a silent thank-you.

_Finis._

**A/n:** All comments and criticisms appreciated.

**Edit:**Slightly changed the drabble a bit so it would flow better. Note: In one paragraph, the Hat was referring to both Slytherin asthe founder AND as a house.


End file.
